Tremendous changes have been occurring in the Internet that influence our everyday lives. For example, online social networks have become the new meeting grounds. They have been called the new power lunch tables and new golf courses for business life in the U.S. Moreover, many people are using such online social networks to reconnect themselves to their friends, their neighborhood, their community, and the world.
The development of such online social networks touch countless aspects of our everyday lives, providing instant access to people of similar mindsets, and enabling us to form partnerships with more people in more ways than ever before.
However, as social networking transforms our lives, many businesses continue to struggle to keep up, and provide value to the consumer in such a structure. Without the ability to extend value to a consumer's online experience, consumer loyalty to a business may quickly diminish. Thus, many businesses are searching for new ways to integrate social networking into their online business models with features that appeal to the consumer, while making a profit. Therefore, it is with respect to these considerations and others that the present invention has been made.